EPISODE 79

This Messy Magnificent Life, Part 1

Let’s face it: Life gets messy sometimes. But most of us don’t like to reveal our personal messes, and as a result, we don’t often hear the truth about them from others. In this special guest episode with bestselling author and teacher Geneen Roth (Part 1 of 2), she shares wisdom from her new book, This Messy Magnificent Life — on the problems and obsessions that pain us, and the strategies that can set us free.

This week on The Living Experiment, while Dallas is off on adventures, Pilar has a very special guest: Geneen Roth.

Geneen has written close to a dozen terrific books, including Lost and Found: One Woman’s Story of Losing Her Money and Finding Her Life and When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair. She  also teaches life-changing workshops all over the country.

Most of Geneen’s work explores the intricate, under-examined spaces between how we feel, think, act, and relate — to ourselves, to each other, and to the experience of being alive.

In this interview, a far-ranging conversation that stretches over two full episodes, Pilar delves into Geneen’s new book, This Messy Magnificent Life: A Field Guide. It’s a work so rich in wisdom, feeling, and funny insights that it’s kind of hard to categorize, and even harder to contain.

“This Messy Magnificent Life, Part 1” Episode Highlights

  • The challenges and rewards of writing honestly about very personal (and universal) emotions and experiences
  • Geneen’s story of learning to set physical and energetic boundaries, starting with a circle of red string
  • Why women sometimes use excess body weight to create a sense of protection
  • How our cultural obsession with thin bodies is distracting women from achieving their power as individuals and as a group
  • What we gain by facing our fear and pain, rather than anesthetizing with addictions
  • Thinking about life — and what’s truly important — in terms of how we spend our finite number of breaths
  • Achieving freedom from anxiety by living in the small moments

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